Galina Krause
Galina Krause, '''born '''Cassiopiea von Hohenzollern, is the main villain of the Copernicus Legacy series. She is the Grand Mistress of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, which aims to find 12 Copernican relics that, when combined, make a time machine. She also leads the Order in its quest to defeat the relic Guardians. Throughout the series, Galina's backstory is revealed; this culminates in a massive revelation about her lineage and goals. In the books The Forbidden Stone Galina is first shown waiting by a Polish seaport near the Baltic Sea. A car, driven by her 2nd-in-command Ebner von Braun, picks her up and takes her to the airport. Her plane departs to Germany. Once there, Galina and Ebner locate the house of Guardian leader Vogel. She and the Order men break into the house and demand Vogel tell them where the first relic is. Vogel is killed when Galina realizes he told his American friends, the Kaplans, the secret. Later on, Galina has Ebner build a tracking computer to follow the Kaplans as the investigate Vogel's death. The Order pursues the Kaplans through Berlin and Italy, while she goes to a secret armory in France to retrieve a radiation-poisoned crossbow. She is later shown practicing with the crossbow in the shooting range under her French office complex. Ebner reports in to say that the Kaplans discovered the truth about Copernicus and the Teutonic Order, and now that they have the help of the Guardians. She becomes angry to find out that the hitmen sent after the Kaplans have been defeated by Guardian helpers. Once in Guam (where the first relic is), she and the Order are finally able to catch up to the Kaplans. Galina, Ebner, and Order members corner the family in the cave where the relic (Vela) is. She orders them to hand it over to her, but a fight ensues. Wade is able to take out some of the men while a soldier helping the family pulls Becca to safety. Ebner shoots Becca with the poisoned crossbow, while Galina retreats, knowing she has ensured Becca's death. Wade and the Scorpion's Claw Galina appears in a video conversation with Ebner, where they talk about their next moves regarding the Scorpio relic in San Francisco. The Serpent's Curse Galina has the Order kidnap Sara Kaplan, Wade's stepmother. She hopes to use Sara as a bargaining chip as a way to have the Kaplans turn over Vela. Sara is also being used as a test subject in the Order's new plan to build a time machine prototype. Even though Ebner protests about its instability, Galina decides to activate the time machine she built herself. This is located in isolated Greywolf, Russia, Galina makes a man sell her a Guardian-made painting by threatening to kill his son if he does not comply. She later reluctantly agrees to have the Red Brotherhood (the gangster Order division in Russia) capture the Kaplans. She and Ebner fly to Greywolf Castle, where Sara is being held captive. Later on, Galina is able to corner Wade and Lily in the abandoned gulag mine where they were talking to Guardian Alek Rubashov. Galina recognizes Rubashov as a surgeon who performed cancer treatment on her 4 years before in Greywolf Castle. Rubashov notes how Galina's neck scar is inflamed, meaning the treatment is wearing off. After mocking them, Galina has the Order blowtorch the room, but not before killing Rubashov. Luckily, a Guardian officer is able to helicopter the Kaplans out of the mine to safety. When Wade and Lily head to Moscow and discover the Serpens relic, they find the Red Brotherhood and the Russian Army engaging in urban warfare. Galina arrives by helicopter and tells them to hand Serpens over. Seeing as she has a gun, Wade and Lily agree. At the end of the book, Galina is on a ferry in Istanbul with Ebner, going to receive another dose of cancer treatment from Order doctors. She hears the news from Ebner about the battle of Greywolf Castle and how Sara escaped from the prototype machine. Now that she has the Serpens relic, she is filled with glee and tells Ebner to kill the Kaplans for good. The Golden Vendetta Galina and Ebner go to a castle in Poland, where Copernicus studied and lived. They plan a suicide attack where an Order plane crashes into the castle, exposing part of the time machine frame underneath. As Order police and excavators begin to dig up the frame, Galina's cancer causes her to faint in Ebner's arms. She is taken to an Order-run clinic in Myanmar in a 2-month coma. A doctor comes to tell her that she is beyond any hope of cancer treatment due to the deadliness of her condition. In revenge, she has him killed. Galina meets up with Ebner at night in a street. Ebner presents the news that a man named Ugo Drangheta plans to exact revenge on the Order for allowing his sister to be used in the suicide plane in Poland. He has already tried to kill a Knight assigned to track the Kaplans and steal an old document. Galina, after 2 months of inactivity, decides to ramp up the Order's quest for the relics. Galina sends Oskar Gerrenhausen to acquire ocularia arcanum (ancient glasses that help read Copernicus's diary) in Monte Carlo, but he is foiled by the Kaplans and Drangheta's men. Galina flees the scene in a car but is caught in a 3-way chase. Her car is eventually run off into the ocean and sinks. However, she survives when Order divers open the car. She later coordinates a raid on Drangheta's villa to get the glasses back. The Kaplans manage to get them. Galina continues to pursue the Kaplans to Budapest, then to southern Turkey. Each time she comes close to killing them. Just as the Kaplans arrive in Malta to find the Triangulum relic, Galina, Ebner, and Order troops show up and corner them. Wade is mocked and the family is forced to hand over the 4 keys to unlock the relic. Sara tries to reason with Galina, saying that her cancer is making her insane, but she slaps Sara in response. The relic is unlocked; suddenly an army of relic Guardians wielding swords attack the Order troops. Galina and Ebner barely escape. Galina's final appearance is in a secret Italian nuclear lab, which is has been taken over by the Order. She is making the scientists (including Dr. Kaplan) rebuilt the time machine using the frame pieces from the Polish castle. The Crown of Fire With the deadline of the autumn equinox to launch the time machine, Galina launches an international assassination campaign of the Guardians. She kidnaps (and later kills) the Guardian French Interior Minister and uses him as a way to weed out Guardian hot spots. When Ebner is arrested for trying to steal a relic, she breaks him out and returns to the nuclear lab. With the help of the Copernicus Room, Galina pursues the remaining relics on her own. Simultaneously, the Kaplans try to steal the ones she has and stop her from getting more. When the lab is captured by Guardian forces, Galina is forced to take the time machine to a Montenegro station and later to Croatia. She tries to kill the Kaplans in Uruguay but fails, sending her into a fit of rage. She and Ebner return to her yacht, where she has a massive breakthrough in the relic hunt- the time machine is to be launched from Crete's Labyrinth right on the night of the equinox, creating a wormhole. She has most of the Order's forces occupy Crete, along with bringing the time machine into the maze's center. A battle breaks out between rebel Guardian forces and the Order's Knights. Wade and Lily Kaplan confront Galina, saying she is dying and there is no point in building a time machine. Galina, at this point insane, attempts to kill Wade but is driven back by enemy fire. This gives the Kaplans the chance to get into the machine and go back in time to the Guam battle in The Forbidden Stone. They prevent her crossbow shot from hitting Becca, saving her from radiation poisoning. However, the Kaplans realize that by saving Becca from Galina, they return to a future where she has began a nuclear war as revenge. Galina's Fate Galina secretly took Ebner with her in the Order's prototype machine back to 1516. It is revealed that she is really Cassiopiea von Hohenzollern, wife of Grand Master Albrecht. Albrecht and Copernicus made a deal where Copernicus would take Cassiopiea/Galina to the future to be cured of cancer; she would then rebuild the Order and the time machine in the 21st century, and go back to bring her husband and daughter to live together in the future. In return, Albrecht would spare Copernicus' life. The Kaplans, also in 1516 to fix the space-time continuity, destroy the Order's prototype time machine. This strands Ebner and Galina in the 16th century, where they remain invisible to everyone. To prevent the nuclear war, the Kaplans find Copernicus before he finishes building the machine and convince him to destroy it- saving the future, but stranding them there forever. With the time machine never happening because Copernicus destroyed it, Cassiopiea dies at age 15 in 1516, and Galina Krause dies with her (since they are one and the same) Physical Appearance Galina Krause is 19 years old, and a great example of femme fatale. She is described as beautiful, even by the main characters. She has long, wavy dark hair and pale skin. On her neck is a scar left over from cancer treatment. The scar becomes red when she is angry. Later on, due to stress and the cancer, her face becomes pale and ashen and her hair gets a white streak. Galina usually dresses in black. Her most stunning features are her eyes- one is blue and one is silver-grey. They are said to be mesmerizing and make her look more than human. Personality Galina Krause is an extremely evil genius. Ever since she became the head of the Teutonic Order, she has rebuilt the group into a global corporation with the highest technology. She is ruthless and does not tolerate failure in the slightest. She has a burning passion to find the 12 relics and rebuilt the time machine, seeing it as the highest duty of the Order. As the series progresses, her sanity begins to slip, exacerbated by her failing cancer treatment and the deadline until she may die. Galina has a visible hatred to the Kaplan family, and the Guardians in general. She will not hesitate to kill Guardians or anyone who helps them. She is fine with having fellow Order members die in the process of gaining the relics, sometimes killing them due to their "failure" (much like Darth Vader). She is always one step ahead and has an amazingly bright mind. It is later revealed that her driving factor for finding the 12 relics is to be reunited with her husband Albrecht and daughter Joan. Her quest has made her insane, and she fights until the end. Category:Book Villains Category:Sadists Category:Deceased Category:Murderer Category:Leader Category:Hypocrites Category:Power Hungry Category:Control Freaks Category:Wrathful Category:Wealthy Category:Female Category:Spouses Category:Parents Category:Teenagers Category:Vengeful Category:Mentally Ill Category:Fighters Category:Faux Affably Evil Category:Psychopath Category:Mastermind